Managing a version of the documentation for each release in confluence is to the contrary quiet
cumbersome. With every new release we need to *manually* copy the existing documentation to a new
place. Page by page. Unfortunately there is no easy way to just create a copy of a page and all its
subpages at once. All we could do is export the whole space and import it as a new one. This would
mean one space for each version of the documentation and this will make administering the whole
thing very complex. In addition it means that fixes to the documentation will have to be done in
multiple places if we want to keep the docs for a released version up-to-date as well. I fear that
nobody is willing to go through that hassle meaning that the documentation will be that as of the
time of release. Then there is no reason to keep multiple versions, a static export from the time of
release would be enough.
Uli
On 01.06.2010 22:54, Robert Zeigler wrote:
Other than having a branch (or separate diredtory) for 5.0 vs. 5.1 vs. 5.2, I
don't see the approach of having separate documentation for each sub-release as
being taxing. Quite the opposite: it seems to be that being sure to document
when a feature was introduced, removed (String service id injection, eg.), or
changed (ClassTransformation) within the documentation, including keeping notes
of what applies to which version, within the same document is only going to
lead to confusion, and more rules about documentation. I like having the
separate documentation versions. I'm in the middle of upgrading an app right
now from 5.0.14 (yup, that old) to 5.1.0.5; it was 5.0.14 for a long time
because: a) we had monkey patched/worked around various issues fixed in later
T5 releases so there was no pressing need to upgrade and b) the time commitment
to upgrade, test, etc. the application was outweighed by the need to fix bugs
and add features requested by the client. During the l
ast year+, being able to refer to documentation that is specific to 5.0 was a
real boon. So, -1 for single documentation for all versions. :)
Robert
On Jun 1, 2010, at 6/13:13 PM , Ulrich Stärk wrote:
By chance I had a conversation with someone experienced in organizing
documentation for software products later today and he recommends to follow a
pragmatic approach. The documentation should always represent the latest
development version and features should simply be marked with the version of
their introduction. In case of changes to previous behaviour old and new
behaviour should be documented, again with a note when the changes were
introduced. Everything more complicated like managing a n-version documentation
is likely to need a lot of rules and discipline and is therefore likely to not
being successful.
This is more or less what I proposed in the last approach except that it isn't
coupled to a change in our release process. Do you think this would be feasible?
Uli
On 01.06.2010 12:49, Ulrich Stärk wrote:
With the upcoming switch from maven-generated documentation to
documentation kept in confluence we should discuss how we will organize
the documentation in the future, especially with respect to versioning.
Currently all work on Tapestry is done in trunk with some fixes being
backported to the 5.1 tag, including documentation. This means that we
have several completely independent versions of the documentation that
can be generated on request. If we want to keep it that way, we will
have to somehow artificially version our documentation pages in
confluence. E.g. with a parent page "Documentation" and subpages for
each Tapestry version like "Tapestry 5.1", "Tapestry 5.0" and "Tapestry
dev" which themselves again contain independent pages for the different
topics like cookbook, user guide, tutorial, etc.
Another approach could be that we only have the most current
documentation in confluence and whenever a release is published, we
export the documentation to html and store it somewhere alongside the
release. This would have the advantage that we don't have to manage
several versions of the documentation but it would also mean that we
can't easily amend the documentation of the released version once work
on the development version has progressed.
A third approach could be a mix of the two where we only have the
documentation for the current release and for the current development
version in confluence.
A yet another, more radical approach could come hand in hand with a
change of how we develop and release Tapestry. Instead of working
towards a fixed set of functionality and release when it's done (which
might take some time) we could begin releasing at a fixed interval, say
every two or three months. That way the current release version and the
current development version wouldn't drift apart that much concerning
documentation and possibly long-awaited new features. That way it might
be enough to just have one version of the documentation and mark
features not yet in the release version as such.
There are possibly many other possibilities that I didn't think of and
I'd like to discuss these. What do you think? Have you any other
suggestions how to solve this versioning problem?
Cheers,
Uli
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